South China Sea Consulting

South China SeaConsulting aims at facilitating the dialogue amongst the different players involved in this escalating multi-dimensional conflict. This is be achieved by mapping their different territorial hard and soft claims, which will facilitate the identification of possible negotiable regions. In addition to mapping the different basic territorial claims, SCSC dissects the political, economic, and military dimensions of the conflict that influence any negotiation process. The territorial claims flexibility will be greatly influence by the way how these three dimensions are addressed during the negotiations. Link

SICMa: Managing Conflict

Sino-Islamic Conflict Management Framework: China’s global initiatives are bringing Chinese increasingly in contact with Muslims around the world. Chinese businessmen and officials are often not familiar with traditions of local Muslim populations, resulting in numerous people-to-people disputes. Once disputes arise, Chinese representatives often approach them in an unsuitable manner.

The central objective of this paper is to present a novel Sino-Islamic interpersonal conflict management framework (SICMa) that integrates the principles, traditions, and values that define traditional Islamic and Chinese conflict management methods. SICMa consists of three core parts. First, the guiding principles behind Islamic and traditional Chinese conflict management approaches are described and compared. Then, the commonalities and discrepancies between the two are identified and addressed, and potential misunderstandings clarified. Finally, this hybrid framework bridges the theory-reality gap by taking into account human behavior and integrating local indigenous conflict management principles. Ultimately, SICMa should help Chinese and Muslims to overcome intercultural misunderstandings and obstacles. Link

One Belt One Road Initiative

One Belt, One Road Initiative: President Xi Jinping launched China’s “Belt & Road Initiative” (BRI) in 2013 with the aim to interconnect major economies in Asia and Europe through infrastructure, investment, and trade. As shown in Fig. 1,1 this initiative can be divided into a land-based economic belt and a maritime route. The economic belt refers to a vast network of rail and road routes, as well as natural gas and oil pipelines that mainly connect China’s Xian city to Europe through Central Asia, but also countries found along the belt, such as Mongolia, Pakistan, and India, among others. As for the maritime route, it refers to a network of costal infrastructure, such as ports, that will link China to East Africa and Europe through South and Southeast Asia.

Given the eclectic economic, political, religious, and cultural backgrounds of the countries involved, it is fundamental for China to adapt to this complex environment if it wants the BRI to be successful. More importantly, China has to familiarize itself with Islamic beliefs and cultures because many of the core countries along the BRI are of Islamic descent: the Central Asian republics, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Middle Eastern countries among others. Link